What Is Sociological Imagination?

                                                  

                                       What Is Sociological Imagination?

Do you ever wonder why all the South Asian brides apply Henna on their wedding day? Or why do western brides wear a white dress on their big day? Or Why American people have Turkey as a must food item on Thanksgiving?

If you ask your parents about these queries, they might answer as “ It’s the tradition” or “ because it’s nice” or  “It always has been like this” or “ It’s the way our ancestors used to do and are being followed until now”

These answers are in actual connected – tradition, personal Preference, Personal and world history; they all combinedly lead one to perform a single action as simple as applying henna on the wedding day and similarly for other mentioned questions.

This is where the concept of Sociological Imagination needs to be introduced.

The term Sociological Imagination is composed of two words i.e. Sociological – derived from sociology; study of human society and Imagination which means forming new ideas or the ability to be creative. This pretty much gives the idea of the concept of Sociological Imagination.

In simpler words, it’s all about the way of understanding people’s actions and behavior by viewing it from the societal level.

 A vivid relationship between oneself and society in a wider context.

If a person decides to steal out of hunger, a common mind would see it only as stealing but a sociologist would look at what really made this person do this? thinking it from the societal level, (you see?); Was it because there was no adequate job? Or maybe because there weren’t any welfare programs available? Or did such individuals become insane as a result of poor governmental policies hence decided to engage in such a crime? thus this concept doesn’t make us blame the individual alone but makes us critically think about the laws and the people living in an environment that must have been an influence on him or her.

Let’s take another example:

As we know, Exercise provides us multiple benefits. From maintaining B.P to weight to reducing stress etc. On a social level, like playing a sport or a morning jog with friends, it seems to have a positive impact on worker’s productivity and benefits company. Hence societies take certain measures to build running/walking and biking trails.

Hence, exercising not only benefits at an individual level but it also serves a huge purpose in the societal world i.e. a person benefits from being surrounded by a society that encourages exercising and makes it easier for a person to do so. Similarly, a community that doesn’t encourage exercising would impact an individual’s thinking the same way i.e. repelling the exercising routine. 

Thus, in this way Sociological Imagination is used to interpret a personal behavior in a certain societal context.

This doesn’t discredit the idea of the sociological imagination simply as a made-up thing. Instead, the concept of the sociological imagination is used to discover how many other aspects of our life our made up or “socially constructed.”